


Triggers

by Iron_Yokai



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Super Sons (Comics), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: And repressing just about everything, Angst, Anxiety, Lack of coping mechanisms, Many mentions of violence, Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, Seriously they need to be in therapy ASAP, The Batboys really need therapy, They're all broken inside, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, brief mention of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 01:10:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10061075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iron_Yokai/pseuds/Iron_Yokai
Summary: A person, a word, an interaction; small things building and building on each other in complete silence.





	1. No Good Deed

**Author's Note:**

> So when I originally started writing this it was supposed to be about Earth-3 and the Crime Syndicate. Then it somehow turned into a character study about the triggers for each of the Batboys. Anyway onto the warnings for the specific things that could trigger you guys in this chapter: mentions of rape, unhealthy/lack of coping mechanisms, mentions of death and the dysfunctional mess that is the Batfamily most of the time. This is a completed story with a chapter for each of the Batboys but if I could find the inspiration I'd be open to making something like this for other characters. If you feel like I missed anything in the tags or have a request/suggestion please let me know. Thanks!

Even Dick himself couldn't fully explain why he gave the slightest flinch every time someone touched him out of the blue. At first he thought he had just been blocking out the pain from some minor injury he had gotten as Nightwing but it didn't go away with time and rest. He was fine if he saw the person coming, subconsciously acknowledging that it was alright since he could see them, or if he had been the one to initiate contact but whenever someone snuck up on him he'd always feel a subtle shift in his breathing. It felt like the air was pressing in around him for a moment and no matter where he was it always felt like he was being drenched in a rainstorm that never happened. Whenever this happened Dick would push the strange feeling to the back of his mind and hoped that it would go away.

For all of Jason's impatience with his family he was surprisingly understanding of Dick's strange fears. His younger brother never questioned why he froze up for a few moments whenever he was caught outside in a thunderstorm or refused to go anywhere near a spider. But most of all Jason never used guns whenever he was around after one incident when Dick had a breakdown when Red Hood had callously executed some low level mob boss in front of him. It had taken him hours to return to normal and he still didn't know exactly what he had said to his younger brother but it was enough to make Jason completely abandon his guns. Dick never asked what he had said or done while he was out of it and Jason never offered any details. Most of all he had never told the rest of their family about it.

As much as Dick loved to swing through the cityscape with his grapple he couldn't deny the rock that always settled in his stomach for the first few seconds after he jumped. Part of it was the rush of adrenaline that came whenever he performed any death defying stunt but underneath it was always the anxiety that caused him to still wake up crying or screaming some nights. The thought that maybe this would be the time his equipment malfunctioned and his line snapped would swirl through his mind until he felt the familiar tug that meant that everything was fine. Every now and then it would take a little longer for his line to catch and his head would spin until he realized he wasn't falling anymore. It was worth every second of the terror for him though. Dick was built to fly after all.

If there was one thing he hated about his family it was the constant fighting between them. He knew they all had extreme personalities that didn't always pair well with each other and he had come to accept that they would almost never all get along, but that wasn't the part that bothered Dick. It was the times when things turned to yelling and violence between them that he couldn't stand. Memories of the news report about Jason's death, and how that had been he had found out it, always came back with a vengeance whenever his more reckless younger brother escalated his arguments Bruce to slamming doors and storming out of the manor. He couldn't ignore the flashes of Tim bleeding out from the stab wound to his chest or the way his heart had nearly stopped when he had found out that it had been Jason who had stabbed him whenever those two would end up in an all out brawl over something stupid. The worst though were the memories of his youngest brother's lifeless body and the choking grief at failing another of his siblings that came whenever Damian would yell at him and tell him to go away. He knew they could handle themselves, that they were all more wary now after the tragedies they had gone through, but he couldn't help the fear that he was going to lose another family.

April 1st was always the worst day of the year. He would call out of work before turning off his phone for the rest of the day and ignoring the brightness of the outside world. The windows of his apartment would remain firmly shut with the curtains drawn to block out the normal, happy faces of the people outside who were just going about their day like it was any other. Occasionally someone would stop by and knock on his door, one of the people who cared enough to check and make sure he remembered to eat or that he wasn't going to try to do anything he would regret, but he never answered the door for any of them. Dick would spend the day trying not to lose himself in his mind until one of his brothers would inevitably break in through one of the windows to briefly check on him before heading out to patrol Blüdhaven for the night so he had one less thing to worry about. He tried to hold off his tears until he was sure they were gone for the night. They were each dealing with their own sets of problems, some more obvious than others, and Dick felt wrong about burdening them with his grief. And on April 2nd he would push everything back down for another year and move on with his life like normal.


	2. Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad you guys seem to be enjoying this! This is was actually a lot of fun to write, despite the dark nature of most of these. Like I said before if there's any suggestions or requests you want to make please leave them in the comments. And now it's time to move onto the second of the Batboys, Jason! The warnings that are specific for this chapter are: mentioned character death, mentioned violence, brief mentions of possible insanity (although that could really apply to all of these).

The effects of the Lazarus Pit never really went away, they could only be managed and temporarily suppressed. That was something Jason knew better than anyone. He fought every day to cling to his clarity by taking out whatever he could on the scum that committed the worst kind of crimes. It was oddly therapeutic in its own way, even as he knew there was something deeply wrong with that thought. The constant fighting with himself was enough to cause its own sort of insanity. The worst of it happened whenever his family was involved.

  
It wasn't as bad with Damian as everyone else, probably because Damian hadn't been involved with the Bats at the time of his resurrection. The little demon's insufferable arrogance about how he was Bruce's only true son was enough to drive anyone to murder but that never seemed to effect Jason badly. Instead it was whenever Damian would fix him with that damn smirk of his and make an almost off handed comment about how even the people who had gone to all the trouble to bring him back to life had been disappointed in his skills and had easily replaced Jason. The al-Ghul's were a sore subject, one that the rest of his family knew not to bring up lightly, but Damian apparently didn't care about the consequences of his words. Every time that smirk spread across the brat's face Jason could feel his fingers itch to grab one of his knives and show Damian exactly how skilled he was. His hand always made it to the handle knife before he realized what he was doing and stopped himself.

  
He was somehow able to ignore the rage buzzing at the back of his mind whenever he was with Dick, but it was only just barely. He could always feel the faint burn whenever his older brother gave him a carefree smile and called him by that stupid nickname from his childhood. It made Jason want to scream and hit him, demanding to know just when Dick had decided to start caring about him again. He knew it was stupid, Dick had never stopped caring about him, but there was something that felt so right about wanting to hold Dick accountable for throwing him in Arkham and then acting like it never happened. Memories of the screams and laughter from Arkham always flooded back whenever he saw his brother's bright grin. The coppery taste of blood from where he had bitten the inside of his cheek always brought Jason back to his senses.

  
Surprisingly Bruce wasn't the worst cause of the Pit's madness trying to reclaim him. It even surprised him sometimes how forgiving he could be when a voice that wasn't quite his own was screaming inside his head about how this was the man who let him die. Seeing Bruce always managed to drive his mind back to the night he died, causing phantom fire to lick at his skin and the laugh that haunted his nightmares to echo through his head. Almost like he was trying to rationalize the desire he felt to pull out his gun and empty the clip into Bruce's chest before anyone had the chance to stop him. Jason had stopped wearing his weapons when going to see his adopted father when they had been at some family dinner and he had clicked the safety off his gun before even realizing what he was doing. He couldn't even remember what has set him off.

  
Tim was probably the most innocent one in the grand scheme of things. The kid hadn't even been considering being Robin until Dick had forced it on him and he had never said a cruel word to Jason that he hadn't deserved. In fact, out of all of his family, Jason had to begrudgingly admit that Tim was probably his favorite most of the time. That didn't stop the images of his replacement lying broken and bleeding on the ground from flashing through Jason's mind whoever they saw each other. He perfectly remembered how easily he had been able to take the third Robin down each time they had fought, how good it had felt to push that batarang into Tim's chest knowing that if he shoved hard enough he would see his replacement choking on his own blood. Something in him had just felt right as he watched Tim's blood drip onto the floor, knowing that he had caused it. Jason never woke up screaming from those nightmares but oddly content. It was enough to make him sick each time.


	3. Finishing the Hat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to chapter 3! This one will be focusing on Tim and before I get to anything else I want to put a disclaimer right here: I do not have Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder nor do I know anyone who does. The way Tim is characterized in this is purely what I think having this condition would be like for him given his situation. I don't have any personal experience with it and I don't have an overwhemlning amount of knowledge about this subject. I did do research but I can't guarantee that this is 100% accurate. If there's anything that is offensive or incredibly inaccurate please let me know.  
> Alright with that out of the way as always enjoy the chapter and leave all feedback/requests in the comments. Thanks!

Tim was a perfectionist, in both his personal life and his work, they all knew that. He had his little quirks like they all did but he knew that something about them was different than his brothers'. Spending hours upon hours looking at his computer screen tracking down leads and searching for the small clue that would crack the case became a nightly occurrence until the burning in his eyes was as normal as breathing to him. Every now and then he tried to take breaks, setting alarms to make sure he remembered to eat or to make sure he didn't forget to go into the office in the morning, but they always faded into the background once he started his research. Tim couldn't even remember all the times his family had come to check on him after over a day of not hearing from him only to find him sitting in the same position he had been in for hours, totally focused on whatever task was on his mind. They always told him that he should be worried for his health but Tim never saw the reasoning behind it. He would sleep when his work was done.

  
Dick didn't do it on purpose, Tim was completely sure of that. Or at the very least he didn't do it to purposely cause him any distress but that didn't change the way Tim's heart rate would pick up a little whenever Dick used one of his "improved" English words. Aster, traught, whelmed, they all set Tim's nerves on edge whenever he heard them. Each word was like a physical blow that made Tim was to cry out and correct his older brother before he could use it again. But each time Dick would get that ridiculous smile on his face and Tim would bite his tongue, doing his best to ignore the way his skin was crawling at the inaccuracies. If it made Dick happy then he could push down the anxiety that would inevitably come from listening to him talk.

  
Tim wasn't exactly sure what he had done to Jason but he knew that whatever it was wasn't worth the breakdown he was now having as he looked around his apartment. Something was off, he could feel it down to his bones but he couldn't figure out what it was. Desperately he searched his entire apartment from top to bottom looking for the out of place object or whatever it was that was causing this sense of wrongness. The thought that something had been changed was making his stomach churn and his hands shake but Tim kept searching and searching. He was nearly on the verge of tears by the time he contemplated calling Jason and demanding to know what exactly he had changed and how he had changed it. He had to know what Jason had done so he could fix it, so he could go back to feeling normal. It took him three sleepless nights of searching before he could swallow his pride and call his brother for answers.

  
Being the leader of the Teen Titans was one of the hardest things Tim had ever done. It wasn't the pressures of leadership that got to him or the fact that he was knowingly sending his friends into danger every time they had a mission. He hated having to plan battle strategies from afar, where there was no danger of him being taken out but also no way for him to be directly involved. He trusted his friends and knew that they would do whatever he told them but there was always a small voice in the back of his mind telling him that they were going to do something wrong. That he should call them back and complete the mission on his own so nothing could go wrong. They were skilled and capable but they weren't him. Tim hated himself a little each time he wanted to yell at the Titans for not following his exact orders. He hated that he knew it would make the knot of tension in his stomach disappear if he did.

  
Battle was by its very nature chaotic and unpredictable, based on reactions to reactions. But Tim was always prepared with the perfect plan that had to be perfectly executed to work. Until, of course, the one time he was wrong; one misjudged enemy in one chaotic battle was all it took. He and his team were defeated and had to be rescued at the last minute by his family. Tim could feel himself burning with shame as Dick checked him over to make sure he was ok and he brushed off Bruce's almost order that he go to the med bay to get properly looked at. He nodded and looked properly apologetic for getting himself into this situation until he could escape back to his room and lock the door. It was all he could to not hyperventilate as he tore apart the perfect organization of his room looking for the journal he had brought there one time before promptly putting it in its place and forgetting it as it faded into the normalcy. When he finally found it something inside him relaxed as he managed to scrounge up a pen and began furiously writing in it. Every scenario he could think of, every reaction and counter he had ever seen and some he had only heard about, every plan he had ever made were all written down in Tim's neat scrawl. By the time he had filled the journal he was finally starting to feel normal again, even as he began his search for more paper to fill.


	4. Proud of Your Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here it is, the last chapter. I guess it's a little late to mention it but seeing how I forgot to in any other chapter better late than never. Because I'm a complete nerd and recently got really interested in musicals each of these chapters takes their name from songs from musicals that I thought fit each character. Dick's is No Good Deed from Wicked, Jason's is Confrontation from Jekyll and Hyde, Tim's is Finishing the Hat from Sunday in the Park with George and Damian's is Proud of Your Boy from Aladdin. Anyway enjoy the last chapter and thanks for all the support I've gotten on this story!

Deep down Damian knew that Todd didn't deserve his hatred and he certainly didn't deserve the cruel words Damian constantly used against him. Jabs at his self worth and skills that were meant to hurt more than any physical attack and always made Todd's eyes take on the faint green hue he recognized as a result of the influence of the Lazarus Pit for a split second. Damian knew it was childish and more than a little unhealthy to take satisfaction in seeing the way Todd would flinch slightly at any mention of the League of Assassins, especially when Damian brought up his mother and grandfather. They had taken Todd under their wing while he had been staying with them, something Damian could only hazily remember the specifics of given his young age at the time but he had no trouble recalling the way he had hated the attention his family had given to this stranger. His mother had doted on Todd; training him and helping him with whatever she could, to the point of often leaving her own child alone. His grandfather had been more concerned with Todd's safety out of some misguided guilt in the young man's death than he had ever been for the health and happiness of his true grandson. So every chance he got Damian would lash out with words meant to make Todd flinch and hurt in even just a fraction of the way that he had.

  
Drake was another matter entirely in Damian's mind. The one who had stolen his birthright and stubbornly refused to give it up even when Damian was perfectly capable to taking over the role of Robin. The one who could hack like it was second nature to him, who could solve mysteries in a matter of seconds like they were simply a game, who fought well despite his build leaning more towards a scholar instead of a warrior. The one who had been there for his father after Todd's death to help the man through it. Drake was almost the same kind of infuriatingly perfect that Grayson was but with none of the confidence to back it up. Damian couldn't stand seeing him shrug off compliments like he didn't realize that they were true or refuse to take credit for some admittedly brilliant battle strategy he had thought of. He refused to take pride in his skills no matter how much he should or how better he was than Damian at nearly everything. He knew he would never live up to the genius who proceeded him, even if Drake did refuse to admit to his near perfection.

  
Damian tried to hate Grayson more than he actually did, if only for that fool's benefit. Grayson had no sense of self preservation and trusted everyone in his life wholeheartedly, even the people that didn't deserve it. In a way his oldest brother reminded him of a a puppy seeking the approval and attention of everyone around it. It was enough to make Damian want to tear his hair out whenever Grayson would smile and act like whatever ruthless or cruel thing he had just said was all some big joke instead of a serious threat or attack. The only thing that ever seemed to bother him was whenever Damian would make some comment about himself. It would lead to that insufferable frown that made him feel like he had just sucked all the joy out of Grayson and a response about how he shouldn't talk about himself like that. Grayson was constantly going on about how he had the potential to be the best of them all and how he was a true part of the family no matter what he felt like was the truth. Damian wanted to believe what his brother would tell him, that it wasn't just stemming from the fact that Grayson was an overwhelmingly kind person to everyone he met, but he knew that eventually he would make a mistake and Grayson would realize the truth about him. That he wasn't worth the trust.

  
Jon was.... confusing. Even more so than Grayson, which wasn't something that Damian had thought was even possible. Jon was kind in the same way as Damian's oldest brother but it was completely foreign at the same time. Seeing the half-Kryptonian always left Damian's stomach tied in knots in a way that he wasn't sure if he liked or not but never failed to make him want to push the other boy away. He knew that Jon had developed an attachment to him and that he would never truly be right of him but having such an innocent person around made him uneasy. Damian didn't trust himself to not hurt Jon, whether physically or mentally, because truthfully it would be far too easy for him to do. He had kryptonite on his utility belt, something that wasn't even really necessary given the way Jon's powers would fade in and out naturally, and he knew that one well timed cruel word would break the boy's spirit as effectively as any physical blow. Yet despite his best efforts he found that he couldn't push Jon away like had done with nearly everyone else in his life he tried to protect from himself. Something in him stubbornly clung to their friendship. Damian just hoped that it was the natural goodness in him that Grayson would go on about and not the part of him that had been raised to manipulate and use the people around him.

  
His father was the one it took the most to impress. With Grayson it had been easy, just showing up and proving that he could protect himself was enough, and with Drake and Todd it had taken only a little more effort to earn their more begrudging respect. But his father never acknowledged him with more than a cursory nod and a half sound of approval before something else took his attention. Damian's blood boiled every time his father would turn away from him, focused on something he deemed more important than his own son. He knew that he had never been planned on or even wanted by his father, that his mother hadn't even told him of Damian's existence until they had shown up on his doorstep, that his father already had three sons and even a couple of daughters that he would never be able to replace but it still hurt to know that he wasn't wanted. So Damian fought for every acknowledgement he could get and took every opportunity to make himself shine in his father's eyes. He trained twice as hard as any of the others had before him, pushed himself to the very edge of his limits before ever giving into exhaustion, tried to solve their cases faster and faster each time but still he never received true praise. In the end Damian resigned himself to the fact that he would probably never be good enough to get the same fond smile that Grayson always received or the approving look that his father gave Drake when he solved a case.


End file.
